With such a high interest in the Games, BJ 2008 on the road for a big success

In one of the articles in that column last month, Matt Brosenne rightly underlined that ‘'The more attention people pay to sport, sports properties and sports stars the more likely they are to be engaged in the content…''. This applies for the Olympics, more than for any other sports property. Behind the attention, and closely correlated to it, lies the level of interest of the population which we can characterize as the driving force that will make people focus on the event, wish to attend the games, read about them, share emotions…and ultimately engage positively towards the partners, the sponsors.

Hence, tracking down and finding the level of interest of the Chinese towards the Olympics give us an opportunity to anticipate the potential success (or failure) of the Games.

Since we started back in 2003 the CSM Media Research-TNS Sport ‘' China Sports Barometer Survey'' , we have regularly (every 6 months) included specific questions about the Olympics, especially about the level of interest in the 2008 Games.

On that very point, let us share with you some insights:

First, it showed that even as early as 2004 (ie even before the Athens Games) the level of interest for the Beijing Games was already quite high: in April 2004, only a mere 25% of urban Chinese declared ‘'not at all'' to be interested in the 2008 Games, which mean that reversely 75% showed an interest, if not a very strong one at that time, at least a reasonable one. At that time, Beijingers were already showing a stronger enthusiasm than people in Shanghai , Chengdu or Guangzhou with interest already above 80%.

Secondly, and despite already starting from so high a level, the interest in the 2008 BJ Games kept on increasing steadily and regularly . The last wave of the survey conducted in April 2008 (right during the Torch Relay international human rights protests), showed that now, nearly all the population shows an interest in the Games, with 85% nationwide and over 90% in Beijing. Closing the gap to the remaining people who are still not at all interested is more than a difficult task because in China, like everywhere else in the world, there are still people not interested at all by sports…and the Olympics are still a sports competition, despite also been many different things more.

Third, the structure of the interest has changed drastically in the past 4 years : while we noticed mostly a ‘'normal'' interest in the Games in 2004 and 2005 with still a limited percentage points of people declaring to be ‘'very interested'' by the event, this pattern started changing quickly from the mid of 2006 onwards. We observed then a continued strengthening of the interest (people looking towards the Games with great excitation and passion and becoming ‘very' interested) at the expense of those waiting for it for mere curiosity. The reasons for that are various, but no doubt that the greater proximity to the Games combined with a strong media pressure from organizers and partners played a major role in reinforcing a stronger interest.

Last, and not least, t his upward strengthening trend in level of interest in the Games proved to be consistent across all types of Chinese, both males and females, youth and elderly, rich and poor….Beijingers and Chinese from other cities. This was especially noticeable in the latest release of the survey when we saw the strongest increases in interest amongst the non-Beijingers and those still ‘'undecided' (women, elderly people who declared to be not interested at all or only a little bit). It might be that the events of the Torch international Relay that showed a negative image of China have strengthened even more Chinese around the Games, making them appear more as the ‘'China Games'' than the ‘'Beijing Games''.

To conclude, if, as we believe, the success of the Olympics is strongly correlated to the level interest of the population of the organizing city and country, then we are very confident about the positive outcome .

Later on, after the Games are over, it will be high time to focus on another crucial criteria: the level of satisfaction. With so high an interest and so huge expectations, satisfying everyone will be a real challenge. But Beijing 2008 seems to be gearing for that.

Chart: level of interest in Beijing 2008- China Sports Barometer 2004-2008

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